Refuge - Softcover

Smith, D. W.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1452002185 ISBN 13: 9781452002187

Verlag: AuthorHouse, 2010

Inhaltsangabe

The book attempts to give homage to a largely forgotten or even unknown chapter in American History; the African-American Law Man in the old west. There are plenty of true stories about these Americans but mostly on obscure web pages and the untouched books in the local library. The Main Character is a fictional collection of several law man that our history has over looked like Bass Reeves from the Oklahoma Territory and before him Willie Kennard from Colorado. As dedicated as Bat Masterson or Wyatt Earp and as quick on the draw as William Butler Hickock but never caught the eye of the dime store novelist; until now.

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REFUGE

By D.W. Smith

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2010 D.W. Smith
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4520-0218-7

Chapter One

Big Jeff

This may be a strange way to begin, but I want to mention that the secondary purpose of this book is to tell the story of my own adventures as a lawman, way back when the west was wild, men were men, and all that other crap we get filled with today. I can't be sure my experience was typical of what others went through, but this is what I saw. I hope you find it interesting, and maybe even learn something.

I am almost 100. My memory is still as good as ever - and I took notes, and talked with some of the people involved. I am not sure why, because I don't remember planning ever to write a book.

I am not sure if every single detail is correct, and am certainly not sure if I remember all that people said. When I tell you what people say, I may be correcting bad English without thinking, from my own habits. My own view, shared by many other Negroes, was that some people were going to hate former slaves just for who they were - and we were far better off than Indians - but I always tried to improve my English. Let them hate me if they want, but not laugh at me.

I learned how to read and write as a slave. Many of us did, despite it being against the law, more than masters would admit. Even today, I don't want to say who taught me.

I read a lot, and even enjoy western movies - I find them very funny, considering how little reality they bear to what I remember about living in the west.

I had better get this written down while I am still around to write. I don't know how much time I have left. I have also missed some promised deadlines to get this to a publisher. Delays are a bad habit of old age, not anticipating that unexpected things come up, promising when you think it can be done, not allowing for problems and promising the get it to someone after you think it can be done. This way you would look good, not slow and lazy. Forgive the writer of this story. The story is well worth telling, and I think it will be worth reading.

This deadline missing is ironic, in a way. A very key element in this story is a deadline, and the problems it created when the central figure was not able to keep the deadline - though he missed by just a day or two, and it was really not his fault.

I want to tell the story of the town of Refuge, a small town in south west Idaho, already on the decline when this story starts. I want to tell of what I did in the town. More importantly, I want to tell the story of Gabe Johnson, one of the few Negro law enforcement officers in Idaho, a good man, and good lawman, and how he probably prevented an Indian War.

My name is Thomas Jefferson - yes, for real, that's my name. I was born a slave, and became free at the end of the Civil War. People always call me Big Jeff (if you saw me you would know why) or just plain Jeff.

My name was given me by my owner in Mississippi, Steven Jefferson, a man with a strange sense of humor. Mr. Jefferson was not a bad man, reasonably kind as a master, at least compared to others. I hold surprisingly little hate for the man. I also hold no love. I was well treated, at least as compared to others. But I am not a dog, however well treated. I am a man. I am a human being.

Steven Jefferson could afford to be a kind master. The threat of force was always there, behind his cheerful smile. The masters had others to do their dirty work. A friend I made after the war told me about the visit to his plantation in Mississippi, about twenty miles from Jefferson place on which I grew up, of a northern architect who wrote of his visit. When you read this, keep in mind that the incident took place in front of a Northern observer, a non-slave owner. Some Northerners were sympathetic to the slave owners and the slave system, but the overseer had just met the writer and had no way of knowing how the Yankee felt.

The Yankee was being shown around the plantation by an overseer, introduced maybe an hour before - we sometimes called overseers "crackers," for the crack of the whip they used so much in their work, keeping slaves in line while enabling the "Massa" to remain kindly.

The crackers were poor white trash given unusual power.

The visitor's account follows:

"The plows at work, both with single and double mule teams, were generally held by women, and very well held, too. I watched with some interest for any indication that their sex unfitted them for the occupation. Twenty of them were plowing together, with double teams and heavy plows. They were superintended by a Negro man who carried a whip, which he frequently cracked at them, permitting no dawdling or delay at the turning; and they twitched their plows around on the head-land, jerking their reins, and yelling to their mules, with apparent ease, energy, and rapidity. Throughout the Southwest the Negroes, as a rule, appear to be worked much harder than in the Eastern and Northern Slave States. They are constantly and steadily driven up to their work, and the stupid, plodding, machine-like manner in which they labor, is painful to witness. This was especially the case with the hoe-gangs. One of them numbered nearly two hundred hands (for the force of two plantations was working together), moving across the field in parallel lines, with a considerable degree of precision. I repeatedly rode through the lines at a canter, without producing the smallest change or interruption in the dogged action of the laborers, or causing one of them, so far as I could see, to lift an eye from the ground ... I think it told a more painful story than any I had ever heard, of the cruelty of slavery. It was emphasized by a tall and powerful Negro who walked to and fro in the rear of the line, frequently cracking his whip, and calling out in the surliest manner, to one and another, 'Shove your hoe, there! Shove your hoe!' But I never saw him strike anyone with the whip. I happened to see the severest corporeal punishment of a Negro that I witnessed at the South while visiting this estate ... The manner of the overseer, who inflicted the punishment, and his subsequent conversation with me about it, indicated that it was by no means unusual in severity. I had accidentally encountered him, and he was showing me his plantation. In going from one side of it to the other, we had twice crossed a deep gully, at the bottom of which was a thick covert of brushwood. We were crossing it a third time, and had nearly passed through the brush, when the overseer suddenly stopped his horse exclaiming, 'What's that? Hallo! Who are you, there?' It was a girl lying at full length on the ground at the bottom of the gully, evidently intending to hide herself from us in the bushes. 'Who are you, there?' 'Sam's Sall, sir.' 'What are you skulking there for?' The girl half rose, but gave no answer. 'Have you been here all day?' 'No, sir.' 'How did you get here?' The girl made no reply. 'Where have you been all day?' The answer was unintelligible. After some further questioning, she said her father accidentally locked her in, when he went out in the morning. 'How did you manage to get out?' 'Pushed a plank off, sir, and crawled out.' The overseer was silent for a moment, looking at the...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: AuthorHouse
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2010
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1452002185
• ISBN 13: 9781452002187
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 160
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland